Astra Lumina Los Angeles — Local services in Unincorporated Rolling Hills Estates

I think if you take the parking and ticket fees out of the equation, the experience could be worthwhile if not overpriced. However, factoring in the parking costs, its hard to justify giving this event more than two stars. Here is why.

When we arrived, the attendant told us that only the $25 dollar parking was available. I told him I heard there was parking for $10. He mentioned it is in a different lot which is now closed. Okay, so basically, the site says there is a $10 option, but that option is magically not available when you arrive, so people HAVE to pay for the premier option.

Here is the thing: parking for this event should really be $0. The event takes about 35-50 minutes to complete. Are they really trying to charge us $25 parking, or even $10 parking, for an experience that is already expensive and that lasts at best 50 minutes? Even in the most expensive city parking lots, you can get all day parking for $40. There is no realistically close street parking options, so you are pretty much forced to pay the parking fee. I intensively dislike these kind of predatory practices.

Additionally, Fever already charges a $4 fee per ticket. There is no other way to buy tickets for this event. If you try going to the botanical garden website, it prompts you to buy a ticket through Fever and they charge roughly 10-15% fee on top of the experience (I paid $36 per ticket, so $4 is 11%). Again, predatory practices as there is no other way of buying the tickets.

Let's do the math. You buy a ticket for $36, pay a $4 ticket fee, and pay $10-$25 for parking. If you are able to go with more people, you can split the cost of parking. In an ideal case scenario, you go in a car of four people and are also able to get $10 parking, or $2.50 per person. You are still paying 18% extra for an event that at best takes you 50 minutes.

In terms of the actual event, I'd say that out of the nine or so exhibits, probably three of them are outstanding. The rest are somewhat uninspired or very similar to another exhibit in the event. Again, to summarize, if you take the parking and ticket fees out of the equation, its arguable that this experience is worthwhile if not overpriced.

Still, should you go, even though there are clearly some anti-consumer practices going on? Maybe. I went because it was a special occasion, and I'd never normally put up with these...

Waste of money. Very short experience and each of the 9 areas is rather small. The light technology is pretty cool in a few of the areas, but it’s just too small. The biggest problem is the company that manages this experience, Fever, is TERRIBLE at logistics. They hold up an entire line of cars waiting to park to sort out an issue or explain the concept of prepaid parking to a single car at the head of the line. The woman onsite who was in charge of parking does not understand her job is to maintain the flow of cars and did this multiple times, creating a massive parking bottleneck for people to have their parking pass scanned while the lot sits empty. Get the problem cars off to the side to have your conversations while letting others behind them through. It’s basic. Then the same thing happened in the ticket line. Holding up the line people to explain to guests that they need the Fever app to access their tickets (this requirement is bad planning also, but I understand why they want app installs). Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the last minute waiver they want you to sign with your mobile device, while walking through the line, in the dark, in the hills with bad cell reception. I’m sure that would’ve been easier to do in the app they force you to install when you buy your tickets. Mind boggling stupidity with this...

While a few of the exhibits were very nice, the entire process of getting to them was a real hassle.

We purchased our tickets online. Once we arrived at the gardens we were told we could not park in the parking lot and would have to drive and park 2.5 miles away, pay an additional $10, and wait for a shuttle to take us to and from the gardens and the exhibit.

Once we finally arrived at the gardens, we were told we could not entire without completing an online waiver form which required our name, email address, and signature. That delayed entry quite a bit as everyone in line was scrambling to complete this online form.

After we finally entered the gardens, we had to wait in another line to enter the exhibit. They said they wanted to divide us up into smaller groups to help us enjoy the exhibit. But since you are with this smaller group of approximately 24 people throughout the entire exhibit, you're still in the middle of a crowd. It seemed like a waste of time to make us wait again in another line.

We've been to other light exhibits at the gardens and around Los Angeles, and feel this exhibit was not worth the time or hassle. If this is the offering at South Coast Botanic Gardens next year, we'll...